In its mobile configuration, the RS690T supports side port and MXM technologies for video upgrades. Notebook manufacturers are able to implement an external frame buffer for the integrated Radeon X700-derived graphics core using the available side port. Manufacturers are free to use 512-mbit DDR2 memory for the external frame buffer.

While the RS690T has an integrated Radeon X700-derived graphics core, it features eight PCIe lanes for an external graphics or greater video output capabilities. The eight PCIe lanes are routable to an MXM-slot for graphics card upgrades. Additionally, the eight PCIe lanes are SDVO compatible in case manufacturers want to implement TV, VGA and DVI outputs. Two PCIe x1 links are available for PCIe Ethernet and ExpressCard on RS690T too.

Connecting to the RS690T IGP-north-bridge via a PCIe x4 interconnect is the new SB700 south-bridge. New features of the SB700 include more USB and SATA 3.0Gbps ports. SB700 increases the amount of supported USB 2.0 ports to 12 from the previous 10. Additionally, two USB 1.1 ports are supported for 14-supported USB ports.

AMD increased the total amount of SATA 3.0Gbps ports to six with the SB700; the SB600 south-bridge only supports four SATA 3.0Gbps ports. While chipset manufacturers occasionally remove parallel ATA support completely with more SATA ports, AMD has opted to retain parallel ATA support. The Trevally reference platform uses the ATA 66/100/133 interface for a flash memory module, similar to Intel’s Robson technology.

It is unknown when AMD’s Trevally platform will make its appearance, especially since RS690 is still unavailable.

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quote: Not if this stuff falls inbetween a standard IGP and discrete graphics in price and performance. Not to mention this would likely be more power efficient than a discrete card, which could (depending on how well it works) be a huge plus to mobile professionals.

Initial benchmarks for the elder version of the chipset, the RS600 for desktop shows that it performs like an X300. A standard value discrete video card nowadays is really X1300/7300. That's about to be replaced with G80/R600 based ones very soon. Integrated cards are in their own class.

Go find out at HKEPC. Sure, it doesn't have the sideport thing, but it won't matter a lot anyway. The first sideport memory offered 1.4GB/s for the faster one, which is less than what single channel DDR200 can offer.

"As we mentioned before, the SidePort memory interface is a single 32-bit channel, which at 350MHz provides 1.4GB/s of bandwidth to the integrated graphics core. At 200MHz SidePort can only provide 800MB/s of bandwidth,"

Seriously, they won't put 2GHz 32-bit memory or something like that for sideport. This is mainly for power consumption.